What Ain't Broke
by truhekili
Summary: It's either palm trees or poison ivy, and either way, Addison hates nature. Addison/Alex. Also features Alex/Meredith friendship. Begins during the Season 6 finale. Two Chapters. Complete. Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, or profit from this fic
1. Chapter 1

The television in Naomi's office blared in the background, as Addison's numb fingers finally hit a correct code, ushering her into a circle of hell even Dante never imagined: voice mail. She watched transfixed, until the first frantic reply came. She was heading for the elevator before Callie hung up.

A day vanished as she cleared her schedule and packed her bag and filled her gas tank and hastily raced up a crowded high way, in a direction she was sure she'd seen the last of. Hours later she pulled into the once familiar parking lot, now labeled with alien signs, and teeming with hyper-active reporters and dazed personnel, some she still recognized.

The scene had looked more real on television – another sure sign that she'd been in LA for too long - and burly police still swarmed the grounds and her stomach knotted as she neared to the main doors and vague panic still coursed through the building as she strode the hallways, galled that this was the closest to home she'd felt in almost two years.

* * *

Three days passed before Alex woke, groggy and disoriented, and another three days passed before Yang called him Evil Spawn again, and a flaming demon still gnawed at his chest and the week lapsed in a fog of whispers and voices and hands and tubes and gasps and boiling antiseptics and stuttering pleas and bandages ripping and glimpses of scrubs and hair: long and curly, dark and fine, blondish and full blond, bobbed, fiery red.

Addison found Derek in his room, and wished him well, and said a silent thank you for lame karma jokes and someone beating her to them. She tried talking to Meredith, who was still jittery and distracted and looked to be on the verge of something – she couldn't tell what – and she watched as Yang and Meredith and the other Grey whose name she could never remember moved from room to room as if they had a rotating schedule.

Their routine was probably just as well, since a young doctor named Kepner was still wandering the halls in tears and another sat silently against the wall, rocking nervously. Even Bailey was deadly calm, and Callie was babbling about having a child with Arizona and Mark – who was apparently engaged to the other Grey – and even as an experienced OBGYN, she didn't see the mechanics of that being any too practical. Then again, that's what happens when you're no longer plugged directly into the SGH grapevine.

She checks on Karev regularly between their visiting shifts, and reminds herself to call him Karev and not Alex, and reminds herself what wounded animals are like, and that she'll need to take her hand from his the moment he wakes because she's sure he'll come up snarling the moment he's able, and he may even bite.

* * *

The haze darkens and brightens and sounds grow more familiar – beeps and hums and voices – and some of the hands no longer burn or pierce or yank and his eyes slit open every now and again and sometimes she's not there anymore - the vacant stare that still hasn't screamed – and sometimes the voices whisper a name that seems to be his, since he hears it so often, and sometimes he hears a soft chuckle amid a halo of red.

* * *

She catches up with Derek's family and rolls her eyes with his sisters over Mark's child bride, and she watches Meredith pop into Alex's – Karev's – room like clock work with nods and promises and squeezed hands and threats to Yang and she imagines this means visiting schedules are being re-worked and plans are being coordinated for when Derek leaves and she wonders idly if the frantic, stammering other Grey will need a permission slip from her parents- or a tranquilizer - to get a marriage license.

Richard's back as Chief of Surgery now and he offers her a job again since she's already consulted with Arizona Robbins on a few cases, and neo-natal has apparently been under-staffed for months since the merger. More very bad jokes ensue about hiring at gun point and returning to the line of fire. At least there's a reason, though, for the forced, awkward laughter – un-like in LA, where forced and awkward now describe her whole life – so she announces she'll consider it, an admission that should surprise her but doesn't.

She returns to Karev's room later that evening because there seems to be a gap in the coverage and the other Grey is squabbling with Mark in the hall and she wonders if Mark has just grounded her. Karev's visitors never seem to be family members, she notices, and she gathers that some people, at least, know why, since Meredith and Yang drop by at all hours and Bailey does charts and schedules in his room and even Altman sits with him much more then she'd need to, if she were just doing standard follow up.

* * *

He's clearer over the following week and he just wants out – but the fire still rages in his chest and he can't move without gasping and walking is an epic adventure and his blood counts would still be too low for a reptile never mind a mammal and he's still freezing or roasting in the span of the same five minutes and just having his thick bandages changed leaves him winded and exhausted and he'd have to get into an elevator since he couldn't manage stairs like this and the whole idea turns his stomach.

He over-hears more about what happened – gossip from the nurses and aides as they work around him– and Wyatt stops by again and tells him they're reporting that he's not sleeping well even with all the meds. Then she keeps asking him what he saw and what he heard and he just stares blankly, since he just doesn't have the energy to snap at her and contain the fire in his chest at the same time and he can't let her see that, either.

It's pointless anyway since she wants to know what he saw, which apparently is all over the hospital, and she wants to know what he heard, and he has no words to tell her that he heard nothing but a pop and a thud – like someone dropping a roll of paper towels they'd just opened, and that it was what he didn't hear – the scream that never came, the scream he was still waiting for, from those silent, vacant eyes – that shattered his dreams.

* * *

Addison's visits grow shorter as he's awake longer, since she's sure he'll be more Karev like when his blood levels stabilize, and she's working full time now and her bad jokes about re-assigning him to the Gynie squad just meet with a puzzled, groggy frown minus the smirk that she was sure was coming.

She asks around afterwards and Callie says he works mostly with Arizona these days, and confirms that she means in Peads, and Robbins insists he's great with kids and nods with an odd look that, yes, she means Alex Karev, though she adds that he still needs to work on his bedside manner with the parents which does sound familiar.

She gets the same story from Bailey– who talks eerily about curses on her interns and the hospitals' haunted hallways before insisting fiercely that he'll be fine and that he's going into Peads. Addison backs away slowly with a polite nod, since she'd almost agree about SGH being haunted, but she seems to be one of the few voices of reason on Richard's staff at the moment, which spooks her even more. She might agree about curses, too, except that she'd already begun to wonder months before how much of her bad luck she'd brought on herself.

If she were still in LA, she might even add something about changing her karma, since even juju hadn't helped lately, and she could be making another mistake as she extends her employment contract with Richard and the Board. But she's accomplished more in two weeks as a surgeon than she had in months as an OBGYN, and that probably counts for something even if the Fates seem to be otherwise occupied.

She'd tried to leave that all behind, once, the entire package that was Addison Forbes Montgomery – but she missed being Satan's Whore or whatever they called her, and she missed how they watched her stride through the halls, and she missed how she'd whipped her interns into shape once, with a withering stare over her trend-setting glasses, and she hated how she left – fleeing like a timid rabbit – and she won't be cowed by Meredith Grey, and she returns Mark's taunts this time, with comments about his little Grey-ling which make him defensive and prove oddly satisfying, and if she's going to be the Ruler of All Things Evil, she might as well enjoy reclaiming her throne.

* * *

He's home a week later but steps are still a bear and Meredith doesn't mention Lexi or Izzie or how shaky he is, and she doesn't complain about picking up his meds at the pharmacy, and she checks to make sure he hasn't drown in the shower and helps to tape him up again afterwards, and it should all gnaw at him more then it does.

He tries to ignore the fights across the hall, the random eruptions because McDreamy couldn't handle being Chief and apparently can't handle not being Chief and Mere gets it either way, and it churns his stomach that he's not sure he could take Shepherd in a fight right now – because not that he would but if McDreamy ever did lay a hand on Mere he'd finish what the freaking shooter had started.

Shepherd's anger rattles the windows, though, and Mere finally tells Alex about the non-baby baby, but swears him to secrecy, and she finishes taping him up again with a lame joke about it being good practice for bike accidents, and she still can't say out loud that she wanted the kid - – because then it would be gone for real – and they can't drink together so they watch hours of Weather Channel specials on Tropical Storms instead.

Days later he still can't drink with her and couldn't help her in a fight if she needed him and he just watches silently as she finishes taping him up, again, and she runs her fingers gently down his spine as she gets up, in a way that makes his teeth ache. She stashes her supplies and leaves with a wordless half smile as he musters his energy.

The steam from the shower dissipates and the window defogs and the chill reminds him of the vacant stare that didn't scream, from another woman he couldn't help. It reminds him of his mother, since he'd always wondered if she couldn't scream, because she was too scared, or if she wouldn't, because she didn't expect help anyway – and which was worse – and dusk settles over him as he drifts off to sleep on the bathroom floor.

* * *

Addison has the last of her things shipped up from LA, and moves into her new house over the following week, and she laughs when Callie and Arizona and Bailey all stop by with identical wine bottles, and she snickers when Naomi calls and insists that she's just running away again, from LA this time, and the wreckage of another slew of bad choices.

It's become a running joke, or the story of her life, depending on who tells it. She'd run from Derek to Mark, when she feared Derek would never forgive her; she'd run from Mark to Seattle, when she feared she would lose Derek for good; she'd run from Seattle to LA, when she feared she was losing herself in her pitched battle with the two of them, or in her failed bid for Chief of Surgery, or in an ill-advised romp in an on-call room.

But she lost herself anyway, somewhere between the failing medical practice and the shiny red convertible, because she'd never been one to run from a fight, and the safety of palm trees and sea breezes and old friends just trapped her in a much more dangerous place, somewhere between wanting to scream and just not caring, and if she was going to get her fight back, it would be here – in a hospital under siege – by mergers and mad men.

Richard made that clear to her with his job offer – that this wasn't the place she'd left – that rankings had dropped and beds had been added and staff had been shuffled and shaken – even before the shootings – and she'd have to be prepared for the work load and the hospital politics and a department in disarray and now … the aftermath of all this, the events still spoken about only in grave, hesitant whispers. It would be the fight of her life, he'd told her; that's what sealed the deal.

* * *

He returns regularly for his follow ups with Altman and finally asks her for something to do – charts and labs, even, part time scut – anything to get out of the house. But he's still too pale and his numbers trump the lame bravado and they both know he's not ready.

Wyatt knows too and he's not even half done with the mandatory sessions and he can't exactly tell her he's afraid to sleep and afraid to stay awake – since the vacant eyes still follow him everywhere – and he can't wait for Mere in the waiting rooms, because then he'd be a patient, and the tunnels are too cold and deserted, and the locker rooms are too public and then there'll be questions, and the cafeteria is too noisy.

He settles on a bench outside a lightly used ambulance bay and watches idly as people hurry by until Meredith collects him. They both glance longingly in the direction of Joe's Bar but she needs to get home to McSurly and Alex will be out cold, anyway, moments after they get home, and he just watches from a dull haze in the passenger seat as she pulls out of the parking lot, grateful that she never asks about the scream that never came.

* * *

She catches a glimpse of him with Meredith again the following week and they're both walking too slowly and she watches them ease down the steps when several elevators are right nearby and she sees Meredith hover, which should drive him crazy but which he doesn't seem to notice, and she catches all the whispers and stares cast in his direction and she remembers him being brash but at the moment he seems to hate being a legend.

She understood the curiosity about him, though, since she'd heard the stories and finally seen his labs and films herself– thanks to a wide eyed Altman, who still couldn't explain how he was alive. But he was Karev and guys like him bounce back and she wasn't surprised two weeks later when she began spotting him here and there, reviewing charts and making rounds with Arizona part-time, though he still looked pale and shaky.

She asked around, and he was back for half days only, Bailey insisted sternly, and only if he kept all of his own follow-up appointments. He was only on scut, Arizona added, and yes he was good, and yes neo-natal was under-staffed since the merger, and yes, she was Addison Forbes Montgomery and yes he could train in both when he was ready and yes she should bust his chops, too, because he's too hard on the parents and too stubborn and head strong and impulsive and just a general, all purpose pain in the ass.

She almost pushed harder to corral him for her service, because her department was too small and morale was too low after the merger, and Richard had left out the part about the high staff turn over rate even before the mass shooting, and she'd forgotten how many high risk pregnancies a major urban hospital dealt with, and her hospital politics were rusty at best – though she had remembered to speak with Arizona before raiding her staff - but pushing anyone was the last thing to do here with everyone still on edge.

She stewed over the impatient memos from the Board instead, memos welcoming her back while prodding her to quickly re-build a department that their decisions had gutted amid mindless budget cuts and staff lay offs. The situation probably called for tact, diplomacy, even, and she would have bided her time and bit her tongue once upon a time, and patiently waited for them to approve her hiring requests.

But swallowing her frustration silently had gotten her nowhere before, so she blasts off a memo instead, questioning how she's supposed to build up her department, exactly, when no one wants to work in a shooting gallery, and previously sane personnel whisper about ghosts and curses, and health aides avoid supply closets and nurses travel in pairs as if they were boarding Noah's ark – and they still won't approve her requisitions.

* * *

He'd been sure they were on him, his first full week back, eyes everywhere, and he still wasn't allowed to do much and he still avoided elevators and even the gallery made him queasy and the smells and the noises and the gleaming floors of the O.R. suites made him jittery and the scrub room was claustrophobic even when he was just running labs in, and a Friday had never come fast enough.

It was the same at Mere's, since Lexi was still avoiding him, and Mark still snarled at him when he dropped by to see Derek or to move more of Lexi's stuff to his place, and Mere was still fighting with McDreamy, and it was just easier when all the others were home to stay in on-call rooms or in the back room of Joe's Bar.

That's where he'd end up that night, he imagined, as he stared into his club soda. But the bar's noise was deafening and the swirl of activity was making him dizzy and he was shivering though it was hot as hell in there and a familiar wave of queasy rippled through him and he heard vague voices and felt cold hands tugging at him and then something slammed near his head or on his head he couldn't quite tell and then it went all black.

* * *

Joe owed Addison, which was the only way she got him home, and the burly bartender insisted as he helped haul Alex into her place that he'd only served him club soda – that he definitely wasn't drunk, just maybe not ready for the crowd and the noise and the work load of his first week back full time– and Alex was vaguely alert again for a brief moment and she waited for a smart ass remark but instead he threw up on himself.

She dragged him into her guest bathroom and pulled off his filthy clothes and set the shower water to hot since he was trembling and she hauled him out before he drown and eased him to the floor and winced at the wide expanse of blue and purple and red still streaking his torso – set off garishly against the rest of his too pale skin– and she checked him quickly for signs of infection or new injury or bleeding, finally exhaling heavily.

Kneeling carefully beside him she leaned back to catch her breath, resting her hands on her thighs and surveying the thick bath mat beneath him. He was doing too much, too fast, she concluded, since he was already asleep and he was still too pale and shivering slightly despite the warm water still beading on his skin and the steam from the shower.

Shutting the water off, she grabbed three thick towels from the linen closet, bundling them around him before grabbing his clothes to toss into the washer. She caught a glimpse of herself in the foggy mirror as she passed and rolled her eyes, wondering what it said about her life, exactly, that he'd collapsed before she'd even gotten halfway across the bar to speak with him, and that it seemed almost back to business as usual at SGH, to have her potential go-to guy in Peads sprawled unconscious on the floor of her down stairs bathroom, while she set off to watch the evening news with a glass of fine Chablis.

* * *

He wakes hours later and his eyes slit open and he doesn't recognize the darkened room but they're staring right at him again, the vacant eyes, and he hears a muffled voice that doesn't come from them and he's coughing and bewildered and the hands are pulling at him again and he's struggling to breathe and he hears Addison's voice.

A bright light flickers on and he blinks while she dims it and he has no why idea she's in Mere's house. The bathroom's too big, though, and the wrong color and then she's explaining something about Joe's and clothes drying in the laundry room and the guest room down the hall and his head finally stops spinning enough to focus on her voice.

The blinding light fades but then he catches her eyes and his face blisters red because her warm hand is on his shoulder and she's peering warily at the purple and blue and black bruising that still encases his side, and the furious red gash it surrounds - as if she expects something to spill out of him like from those freaking Alien movies - and he sees that she can't look away despite her twisted expression and he frantically grabs back the errant towels that slipped away in the tumult and desperately covers what he can.

She starts to stutter and he strangles out something vaguely crude but the smirk that should go with his words doesn't reach his lips and he's still beat red and catching his breath and her hand's still on his shoulder and he can feel the blush extend clear thorough his body and he can't lift his eyes and then she slides her other hand under his chin and she kisses him like she did the last time they'd met at Joe's.

It's entirely too delicate and he should push her away because she's Addison and she's his boss and he's still not clear how he got here exactly and he doesn't see his clothes, but she makes his teeth ache in a different way then Mere does and then she's whispering that she's got space and the guest bedroom's just down the hall to the left, and she'll see him in the morning, and then she's padding up the stairs long before his head stops spinning enough for him to stagger down the hallway.

* * *

She leaves his cleaned clothes by his bed the next morning and checks his breathing just to make sure and he doesn't have a raging fever and he's not spilling open and he's just sleeping peacefully and it should be every kind of awkward that there is but she's running late and they can avoid each other or fight it out after her meeting with the Board, which would fall on one of the few Saturday mornings she really needed to be off, apparently.

She fidgets briefly because he should be sending out mixed signals by now since Karev must still be in there somewhere and he'll probably be hungry and she has no idea how to explain how he got here in any way that makes sense outside of her own head but she really can't leave him here without a word or a ride even though he's still exhausted.

Her instinct is to flee but that's never worked, either, so she wakes him gently and places a key by the bedside and kisses him again like she did the night before but longer since he's still somewhat groggy and he averts his eyes again but he doesn't pull away this time either and she whispers into his ear again that she has room and she's in her car before he can reply and she still wonders if she's imagining anything.

* * *

He calls Joe that afternoon to help retrieve his car and he goes right home but Sloan and Lexi are arguing on the porch and McSurly's camped on the couch eating his cereal and Mere's already heard about what happened at Joe's and is peppering him with questions about Addison and Yang's apparently broken up with Hunt again this week and he closes his bedroom door behind him, trying to close out the spill over-angst from the hospital.

Everyone in the house reeks of it, they shuttle it back and forth daily – recycling, Lexi would call it, just like she called him – and it seeps under the doors and permeates the walls and it's all too familiar, the hostility that soaks right into the floorboards – and he's already tossed some clothes in a bag and slipped out before he realizes he's back at Joe's.

Joe stashes him a quiet back corner this time and it's early for a Saturday so the place is almost empty, and he'll head for an on-call room when things pick up. The key is still in his pocket, he can feel the metal in his fingers, but keys come with expectations and she kissed him twice but she stayed in her own bed and its either sex or revenge she wants, or more like charity she's offering, since she's seen the scars for herself, and that simmers until she's sitting in front of him as if he hadn't made a complete fool of himself again.

* * *

It turns out that there are even more kinds of awkward then she ever imagined, and he doesn't ask for details of the night before as she shows him around her place, and he's still tinged red when she points out that the guest room is on the first floor, no stairs, and she's still not sure it's real, when she discusses this week's cases with him over dinner, take out from Joe's in font of the television, and she still wonders what she's doing, exactly, when she retreats back up stairs.

She wonders about him, too, because she hears that same strangled holler from the guest room hours later, jarring her awake, and he's trembling as he shrugs her away, and it should scare her but it doesn't, and it's all a kind of bravado that, like some of her own thought processes, probably makes no sense to anyone else, but she just leaves him be.

He's fine the next morning, anyway, and mostly just sleeps that day while she runs errands and writes memos, and he's fine the day after, and he doesn't gripe or grumble about working mostly in Peads, and not exactly full time, and she watches idly in the ER as he and Arizona re-examine a six year old girl with a cast on her left wrist.

She watches Arizona speaking with the frantic parents, though she'd already let him explain the diagnosis and the need for new x-rays, watches the little girl go wide eyed at his stethoscope, and giggle at his smirk, and suddenly throw her arms around his neck, in a way that almost knocks him off balance, and turns him red again, though the girl's still giggling when he whispers something to her and settles her back down on the gurney.

He doesn't flinch as much, Addison notices, not when bending at awkward angles, not when six year olds wrap their arms around him, not when he has to retrieve something from a supply closet, or snag an elevator; he doesn't flinch as much, until he gets near a scrub room, or her bed.

* * *

He watches from the back of the gallery, sure she's losing patience. He watches all her surgeries, surgeries that should be his, too. But his hands still aren't steady and his legs still tremble after a few hours and those eyes still stare back at him every night and his brain's in a fog and he can barely remember the steps to scrub in sometimes and he can't screw up in front of her, especially not after that night in Joe's.

He can't do that at her place either, because then she'll hear him, and then she'll know, and they'll all know, and she'll see him again, and she'll stare at the lingering bruising again like she expects him to spill open at the seams, and she'll stare at the scars that won't fade, and he won't even be just a freaking charity case, then, he'll be the guy from the on-call room, the guy who still balks at elevators and conference rooms and twitches when handed a scalpel and volunteers for odd shifts just to avoid her.

He'll be the one who still hasn't kissed her back, even though she started it, and the one who still stares blankly, tongue tied and bewildered, even though her hair and her lips are inches away, and whose stomach flutters uncomfortably when her hand closes around his and tugs him upstairs, the one whose still not sure any of this is happening for real, as her skin slides under his hands and her red locks spill over his shoulder and his clothes join hers on the floor and she's already moaning his name.

* * *

It's not frantic on-call room style sex this time, its slow and awkward and probably too careful and she almost wonders if he thinks he owes her or if its some perverted kind of rent she's after. But that's not how it feels, and that's not how it feels the night after, and he's still tongue tied and fumbling but he's definitely not an intern any more.

It's all anxiety, she imagines, since that still pulses through the hospital from the shootings and the merger and the rankings and the Board, and she wonders how much of her own she's projecting onto him, and she reminds herself that she's Addison Forbes Montgomery and she started it and she's in control and she dragged him into her room.

She'd kissed him first, anyway, and she wasn't going to be a startled rabbit this time, she was going to be the type of woman who took the initiative. She had to, because running had gotten her nowhere, and waiting for Derek to be the perfect husband and for Mark to be the perfect boyfriend had gotten her nowhere, and waiting under a palm tree in LA for her life to get better had gotten her nowhere, and all that waiting and wishing had to stop.

The anxiety had to stop, too, though, the odd dreams she had herself, of him spilling open all over her fine silk bedding, and she begins a new archeology to quell it, because she's always more comfortable in familiar territory, and the lines of deliciousness she'd lusted after once before are now streaked with angry scars and bruising that makes her wince.

She rediscovers those lines again, anyway, though, amid the faint pink flesh emerging along the suture lines, and she smirks because healing skin always moves from searing and aching to itching and ticklish, and she learns the curve of his spine, which outlines how to make him moan, and she studies the smooth skin between his cervical vertebrate, the soft gaps which put him to sleep with a few light strokes, and she memorizes the watercolor map of his ribs, and where her hands can linger when they're holding him together, just in case – since the ridiculously expensive duvet cover itself cost over two grand.

* * *

He wakes too early, again, a month later and shifts uncomfortably, since her arms are still around him, but her flaming hair spills over his shoulder in soft waves and he twirls it hesitantly between his fingers and his breath still catches as he traces his fingers over her warm curves and her skin is still too smooth and she curls under his hands and her body molds to his as if every part of it knows just where to be.

It's all fuzzy, like a mild hangover, until she clambers into the shower with him and her fingers set to work, and she knows full well how scars heal just as well as he does and he remembers why he hates pink so much, and he's gasping and squirming while she's giggling and this is why she's always Satan's freaking Mistress in the cafeteria, and he can't go to the hospital again smelling like that lavender jubilee stuff or the nurses will snicker and the girls will taunt him at lunch, and then the gasping gives way to groaning and he forgets, exactly, what the problem with that purple sudsy stuff is, exactly.

He watches her later that day and she's in the hall outside her office reprimanding a bullying new Attending in her department, and she's squabbling with a visiting Board member over staff funding, and she's rescheduling two procedures over another Attending's very vocal objections, and she's everything she thought she wasn't when Sloan and McDreamy were dicking her around, and when she swore she didn't know what she wanted even though she was pretty damn clear about barbecues and baseball.

He wonders what happened to all that, since she knows what she wants and she's not crazy and she doesn't need rescuing – doesn't need anything, really – and he watches her voice and her manner change as she talks with another set of frantic parents and that's her, too, the soft tone and the warm eyes and the flaming hair and that killer skirt

She's the scrubs, too, orange this time, just for kicks, and he smirks at the looks she gets as she walks down the hall, and he just nods when she hands him the scalpel like she's not waiting for him to freak or to fail, and his cuts are swift and steady and the baby's breathing on his own two days later, and the mother is crying and Addison is smiling and she catches his eyes and his stomach almost spills right into his shoes again.

* * *

She hears it over lunch with Callie – that Mark's child bride will soon be a baby having a baby – and she catches the envy in her friend's voice and hears the frustrated sigh from Arizona's lips and she doesn't even need to ask how their stalemate is going. She could help them with any pregnancy related matter, except their biggest problem, and she's seen it before and she can tell them that time will decide the issue before they know it – if they just sit around waiting for something to change between them.

Time will win, as will gravity, which also waits for no one, not even Addison Forbes Montgomery – Satan's Mistress or whatever they called her – and she still turns heads in her heels and she isn't above noticing the stares when she wears her new red skirt, but she's well aware that some assets inevitably go south as her age ticks north of forty.

Physics was her nemesis in college - even back then, time and space and inertia and gravity and the speed of sound, damn those equations, conspired against her - and she curses the laws of the universe again that night because she's sure he notices, and even a three hundred dollar bra only works when it's actually in place.

But he barely admires the fine lace detailing or the exotic new color that she spent an hour selecting, and she curses the manufacture, too, as the fancy clasp gives way to him too easily and she's spilling into his hands again, and she'd fire off an angry letter to the designers right that second, but then she's gasping and breathless and writhing beneath him and she barely notices that her three dollar garment landed in the potted plant across the room until long after a final shuddering groan courses through her.

It's still dangling from the now over-dressed gladiola an hour later and she just rolls her eyes as her breathing slows, and he's already asleep burrowed into her chest, and it's not like she could reach it, anyway, without waking him, and she couldn't leave the potted plant undressed, and he hates silk anyway – or maybe just anything that gets in the way – and she'll try another style the next day, since she bought most of the designer's new line, but he doesn't seem to care where he finds them as long as they end up in his hands.

They'd have been re-done by now, anyway, she imagines, if she were still in LA – where starter boobs are never in style and the first surgery comes well before age thirty and every decade touch-ups are the norm, and she has the money. She still just scoffs at the thought of plastic under silk, though, and she didn't leave LA to play act in Seattle.

* * *

"Alex," Meredith called suspiciously, sniffing at the air with a grimace as she walked cautiously down her back steps, "why are you trying to burn my house down?"

"I'm not," he grunted, beating back the flames shooting out of the grill as he hastily slammed the lid shut, with a loud clang that made her jump. He was probably too close to the back porch, judging from her alarmed expression, but he'd done what the guy in the hardware store said, sort of.

"Two much coal," he frowned, glaring at the bag as if he held it responsible. "I thought it'd start faster that way," he added, scowling as he peeked warily under the lid.

"And you've taken up arson in your spare time because…?" Meredith prodded, surveying the tattered box that the grill had apparently come in, and the tattered instruction booklet tossed off to the side, and the sack of charcoal cowering against the back steps.

"Addison likes barbecue," he replied, holding the lid up awkwardly and poking at the lingering flames with a metal meat prod.

"She's here?" Meredith asked suddenly, looking around.

"Of course not," he insisted, looking at her like she was nuts. "It's a surprise."

"The food will get cold before you get there," she pointed out, scanning her surroundings more carefully. "If you… had food," she added hesitantly.

"I'm practicing," he snapped. "Maybe it tells you on here how much starter fluid you're supposed to use," he said, moving over to the slouched bag and scanning the warning labels on the side."

"What's the surprise for?" Meredith asked. "Is it her birthday or something?"

"Huh?" he asked, looking up suddenly. "Uh, no, she just… she likes barbecue, and the weather's getting warmer, sort of," he said hesitantly.

"She told you she likes barbecue?" Meredith asked doubtfully. "She really doesn't seem like the type."

"Yeah," he said, shrugging. "But that's what she told Torres."

"So you're not just living with her, you're stalking her?" Meredith teased.

"I'm not living with her," he snapped, dropping the bag and returning to his fire fighting.

"You stay at her place and have sex," Meredith said flatly. "You're living with her."

"It's not like that," he protested, dousing the dying embers with water.

"You're barbecuing," she giggled. "Or, you would be, if you knew what you were doing."

"Did you want something?" he grumbled impatiently, still struggling to untangle the garden hose.

"Are you being a duck, again?" she asked, frowning seriously as she watched the hose battle back, soaking his shoes.

"Lexi's doing Sloan now, remember," he snorted, dropping the hose and grabbing a large metal trash bin from the side of the house.

"That's not what I meant," she retorted, narrowing her eyes.

"Right," he smirked, dumping the last of the smoking embers into the trash bin with another loud thud and retrieving the hose.

"It wasn't you, you know," she said softly. "Whatever went on with Izzie, she wasn't even Izzie when she left."

"But I was still me," he snorted, adjusting the spray again.

"That's what I used to think," she whispered, idly twisting the new ring on her finger as she eyed him warily. "You're bringing Addison to the house warming party, right?"

He stopped what he was doing, avoiding her gaze as her question rattled through his brain. She might not want to go, to see the new McMansion, or to watch the guy that she followed across the country marry Mere, or to hear Sloan crow about knocking up Lexi.

"Addison likes you, you know," Meredith said. "I don't think you have to burn down the neighborhood to prove anything to her."

He almost wanted to believe her, but he'd done that before, almost believed that maybe for once the light approaching from the end of that tunnel wasn't an on-coming train – even if Izzie was dying. But Izzie didn't die, and the train still plowed over him, and he was still sprawled on the tracks, and now the Addie Express was barreling down on him, and he still wasn't barbecues or baseball, and now he was ugly scars and nightmares, too.

"It's just freaking hamburgers," he muttered, covering the garbage can with a heavy lid and rinsing off the grill. Not even steak, not at twelve bucks a pound; just hamburgers.

"Just don't end up a roast duck," she said quietly, lightly squeezing his arm before she went back inside.


	2. Chapter 2

Addison runs her finger gingerly over the plain wedding invitation that had been slipped into her office mail box. She almost makes a bad joke to herself, something about Derek having a shot gun wedding – though that's more Mark's deal at the moment, him and the other Grey whose name she can't still remember.

It arrives amid another flurry of memos from the Board, and she reminds herself through gritted teeth that Richard warned her about being a department head, and about the perils of hospital politics amid a merger, and she reminds herself that her staff is doing the best they can with the resources they have, and that some of them still shiver when they walk under the wide open glass archways that used to signify Seattle Grace's pre-eminence, but now just mostly remind them of the day they were lucky to make it out alive.

She sees Alex later that afternoon, with Meredith and Yang, but she doesn't join them, because the laws of the universe have nothing on the laws of the lunchroom. She watches Meredith absently place a pudding cup on his tray while he scrapes half his salad onto her plate, and she imagines that that's what they all see in the Grey sisters - that they're the type to need rescuing - and she imagines that that was Derek's problem with her, too and Mark's – even if neither of them is exactly the white hat type.

She wonders if that's just a thing with men, the dragon slaying impulse – though she'd tried it once too, she supposes, to be the rescuing needing type, and nobody came.

But she's not that type anyway, and she may be Satan's Mistress or whatever the hell they're calling her this time around, and she may be a hot tempered red head with depressive inclinations and too many shoes and a tendency to sulk and an excessive fondness for ridiculously expensive white wine and designer silk finery – and that might be a recipe for a Wyatt session or two if that woman wasn't a bundle of nerves herself these days- but she was done with pathetic, and her patience was already wearing thin.

He must have known that that invitation was coming, she fumes through her next staff meeting, since he's not tongue tied around Meredith Grey, and she probably tells him everything, and she grabs him by the arm and drags him into her office the first chance she gets and demands to know when he was going to tell her and if he's in the wedding and if he's moving in with them – since most of his stuff must still be at Meredith's, and she's sure he still has a key – and how she's supposed to find a dress on such short notice, since all of her favorite designers are obviously between seasons in early Spring.

She's too angry then – about the wedding she should have seen coming but didn't, about the space she'd cleared in her house for him which still went unoccupied, as if he was just some lingering guest – to notice the second invitation perched on her desk, until after he storms off, snarling something about grilled duck and Mere's brilliant ideas.

That invitation had probably been given to him by hand, she realizes, cringing, and had probably been stuffed into his pocket for a while, since it was tattered, near the thick question mark inked in beside the time and date, and smudged, near his initials, written in his familiar sloppy block printing, and wrinkled, along the underlined part about it being an informal barbecue on Derek's land – his code, no doubt, for skip all the slippery silk finery – though, in her defense, it says nothing about the menu.

* * *

He meets Mere and Yang at Joe's later that evening and he's grumpy and distant and he hears all about how Hunt's still a controlling jerk and McDreamy's still a pouting whiner with grandiose McMansion plans and he wonders where he fits into the angry chick taxonomy, since he's not baseball and hamburgers, and he's still ugly scars and weird dreams, and he was obviously an utter moron to think he might be anything more then another of her charity cases, or a place holder until she moves on or upgrades.

It's all falling into place and the beers-with-Tequila-chasers are really clearing their minds and Owen's getting dumped again, and McDreamy's getting a Lego set from his very buzzed bride to be, and Alex's going to end up in the pit forever for messing with Satan's Mistress, and Meredith is giggling as she floats empty peanut shells in Cristina's glass, and announces abruptly that this must be her bachelorette party.

The girls are raucously urging Joe to perform a strip tease as he quietly collects their car keys, and Alex just shrugs as they sloppily clear off the table for the burly bartender to dance on and dig out their dollar bills, and then Addison's in front of him, apologizing and kissing him deeply and Yang is making gagging noises and Meredith is fondling Addison's hair and complimenting her conditioner and admiring her non split ends and he must be drunker then he thinks because then the hot red head is grabbing his hand and tugging him up the steps and he's a pagan but he prays he doesn't hurl this time.

They're home before he gets his seat belt buckled and he almost mutters something about not being a freaking charity case but then he's groaning under her weight and she kisses him again and her body coils around him and her fingers burrow into his neck and he's sure she knows what that does to him and he fights to stay awake anyway because it can't happen tonight, especially not tonight. But it does and he sinks into the darkness before he can defend himself and he's trembling when he wakes up and she's shaking him gently and telling him it's just a dream again and her arms are still snaked around him.

She's gripping him like she's holding him together and her embrace doesn't loosen until she drifts off and he knows his body's still a freaking crime scene but her eyes are a prison even when she's asleep and the vacant stare still won't scream and what's left of his mind is driving him crazy and he gasps because he needs air but he breezes right by the window as he slips out of the bed, grabbing his clothes as he runs for his life.

He swings by Mere's house late the next morning, still buzzed and jittery, and spies two green dumpsters in the backyard, and he nearly gets run over by McDreamy, who pours excitedly out of the door, shaking his hand vigorously and gesturing happily about tubes of house plans. Shepherd drives off, finally, and Alex pokes his head in the door and sees moving boxes scattered everywhere, even on the steps as he climbs up to his old room.

He shoves the rest of his clothes into two black hefty bags, and is tossing some junk out the hall window, into the dumpster waiting below, when he hears banging from the attic.

Scaling the narrow steps, he finds Mere surrounded by crushed cardboard crates and dusty old lamps and musty clothes and broken toys and piles of faded pictures taken who knows when. He knows that panicked look she gives him, too, so he just shrugs and grabs the closest box and hauls it down the stairs and drops it into the dumpster, too.

Some of it is her mother's, she announces in a trembling voice, and some of it is from when she was a kid, and then she's off ranting about inadequate storage space in the new mansion, and about McDreamy wanting slate instead of marble in the three down stairs bathrooms now, at a cost of twenty grand, and about whether they'll have enough hot dog buns for the house warming party, and she squawks when Alex accidentally breaks an ugly old ceramic vase that's just going in the garbage anyway, and she mutters about how the post it note had always been enough for her, though it wasn't, really, for him, and she shoves old Christmas decorations into a trash bag without even looking at them.

He watches her gather what she's keeping - a few photos of people he doesn't recognize and a cracked music box and a scary old doll with a missing foot - and he rolls his eyes as she trails him down the narrow stairs while he hauls the last box, insisting that she might need whatever's inside. It's stalling, and they both know that, too, so he just hurls it out with the others, closing the window with a thud and dusting his faded tee shirt off.

She's still fuming about it all and squawking about the cracked vase, and he's hot and tired and his fingers hurt -and he just tells her to get new crap for the new place.

Then her arms are abruptly clamped around him and she almost knocks him off balance and they don't do – this – but he doesn't pull away, and he just smirks when she demands again that he bring Addison to the party with him, and tells him again that her new place has two guest rooms for whenever Addison's that mad at him again.

"We can do this," she finally whispers into his chest, and he has no idea what "this" is exactly, and he doubts she does either, but she's still trembling slightly and his arms half close awkwardly around her and whatever this was, at least she'd stopped calling him a duck.

* * *

"You're… finger painting?" Alex asked incredulously, walking into Addison's sun room later that day and peering at the sheets of paper she was laboring over.

"Watercolor," she snapped, continuing to work. "And you're in my light." A neighbor in LA had suggested it to her once, as a form of stress relief. So far, it was proving almost as frustrating as he was.

"What is that?" he scowled, poking lightly at the surface.

"Peonies," she replied impatiently, swatting his hand away as she pointed to the flower filled vase on the table across the room, which she was copying - with limited success. "It's a still life."

"Those look dead," he muttered, shaking his head as he looked from the vase back to her picture.

"Don't you have something better to do?" she demanded, glaring at him impatiently as she continued to mix her paints furiously. "Like whatever you were doing today, since you were gone this morning," she added sharply.

She hated the sound of her voice, hated the words before they finished tumbling out, hated the bitter taste they left behind on her lips, like cheap booze, and she wasn't going to be that woman again. She wasn't doing needy or desperate or pathetic, not this time.

"I was at Mere's," he replied bluntly, scanning her painting again, "picking up my stuff. They sold her house. They're moving this weekend."

"What are you doing with it?" she grumbled, eying him closely. She wasn't going to be that woman, either, the woman who demanded an accounting of everything. But this was the Karev she remembered, and she wasn't doing that again, either.

"It's only two bags," he retorted, frowning sourly. "It won't crowd out your shoe collection, or anything."

"I moved my shoes months ago," she snapped. "A third of the bedroom closet is empty, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Why would I look in your closets?" he asked, with a baffled scowl.

"Because I made room for you," she sputtered, glaring at him. "I made room for you and you still act like a… like a weekend visitor." That never occurred to her, actually, that he might not even look in her closets; then again, he was probably afraid to.

"You never asked me to move in," he grumbled after a strained silence, in a tentative voice that reminded her that all of Bailey's interns had been basically, well, twelve.

"The key I gave you wasn't a clue?" she demanded incredulously.

"I had a key to Mere's house, too," he retorted, shifting uncomfortably and looking away. "We never did…this," he added, his arms motioning vaguely around the room.

It took him a while to stammer out a word as descriptive as "this," and she would have pointed that out if he didn't have that expression on his face, almost as if he'd just bitten into a lemon, and she would have volunteered an alternative immediately if she had one.

"Do you want to," she asked finally, watching hi closely, "do… this?"

"My stuff's in the hallway," he grumbled, rolling his eyes impatiently, as if that was as obvious as, well, as the key was supposed to be, she imagined, since he was nothing if not literal to a fault, and moving in meant stuff in bags, physically entering the house.

"You didn't tell me about the wedding," she muttered, her tone more measured as she wiped off one of her brushes.

"I didn't think you'd want to go," he replied. "But Mere-"

"She makes you think screwed up people have a chance, I get that, and you have to go for her," Addison interrupted, almost giggling at his bewildered double take.

"You remember that, huh?" he asked, grimacing slightly.

"She says you're like a family," Addison added, meeting another puzzled frown. "I heard her tell Yang that, when she was visiting you in the hospital, before you woke up."

"Yang's a different story," he mumbled, shuffling his feet uncomfortably.

"She got the Evil Spawn part spot on," Addison teased.

"Whatever," he grumbled, looking hurriedly back at her painting. .

"My ex-husband is marrying your former best man," she pointed out.

"Yeah," he smirked, watching her again. "Mere wants me to bring you."

"She approves, does she, of this?" Addison teased, motioning vaguely around the room with her arms, as he had.

"She does," he agreed, smirking again, more sheepishly this time.

"Do you want me to go?" she prodded, rolling her eyes.

"Are you asking me to move in?" he countered warily.

"What do you think?" she replied, sighing and shaking her head as she returned to her work.

"I like the yellow splotches on that one," he replied finally, pointing to one of her almost finished projects.

"Not about my paintings," she retorted, "and they're flowers."

"They are?" he asked skeptically, studying them closer.

"What do you know, you play with kids all day," she teased, moving him aside.

"At least they can finger-paint," he noted, nodding seriously.

"You want to pose?" she taunted, eyeing him carefully. "You can be my next subject."

"X-rated finger painting?" he asked, his eyes suddenly widening.

"Art," she huffed, pushing him aside again. "Pervert, I'm living with a pervert,"

"It was your idea," he grumbled, still muttering to himself about hot tempered red heads as he grabbed his Hefty bags and hauled them up the stairs.

* * *

She brings a fruit platter to the informal wedding, and surveys Derek's impressive new house, and congratulates his new wife, and she snickers as she watches Alex poke warily at the barbecue pit and pepper Owen with questions, and she smirks when Bailey corners him and gives him an earful over some indiscretion, because he's Karev again full time, and fair game whenever he's within shouting distance, and the Nazi is going to make a first class Peads surgeon out of him if it kills them both.

Peering out over the bay, she notices how far away LA seems, since there are no palm trees, and her friends are far less laid-back. They're all surgeons here, and it's not like they can just leave that behind after hours, since it's who they are – and it's always work all out and play all out with them – and the raucous party goes on far longer then planned, and she finally pulls him away from the fire pit and drags him behind a tree.

It's a bad idea, though, she remembers vividly the next morning, and she curses weddings for the next week as Alex spreads calamine lotion across her back, and Naomi chortles about there being no poison ivy problems in LA, and she recalls why she hates nature, since the feeling is obviously mutual, and nature is just physics with noxious weeds.

She stays home for the last two days of the week, anyway, and she notices that Alex's mail is finally being forwarded from Meredith's old address, and she learns more tidbits about the family that didn't visit him – about the trucker brother who works two jobs, and the little sister with big dreams, and the meds that he boxes up and ships to the mother with the soft voice and the tenuous grip on reality, and the loose arrangement that they've all cobbled together, through occasional phone calls and rarer notes.

She notices that he's slow to return contact, sometimes, like the occasional cards that come from Amber, who apparently likes art and purple and English class – judging just from her envelopes – and she'll push him about that when she figures out how. But a wounded animal is still a wounded animal, and nature hates her, and Karev roared back when his blood counts and his stamina returned – and she picks her battles carefully.

They both do, she imagines, since he didn't even realize she'd asked him to move in until she told him so point blank – as if a key could mean anything else, really. But she didn't pick a fight that night, because he was more voracious then Mark and could out pout Derek, and she would have gutted him with a ten blade in his sleep months before if he didn't breath so steadily as he curled beside her, and grimace so comically when her fingers brushed over the faint pink flesh still forming along his suture lines, and nuzzle so closely into her neck when her arms still slid around him, just in case.

It was silly, anyway, because the scars were healing well even if they were ridiculously ticklish, and he was in no danger of spilling open onto her new bedding – the plain cotton sheets she'd bought when he grumbled so much about her fine silk offering no traction – and it wasn't like he needed anyone to hold him together any more then she did – even if he had almost set the house on fire trying to barbecue that evening.

She almost laughed recalling his expression – as she called for pizza delivery while he doused the flames. He was being too literal again, she'd teased as the embers smoldered, about the whole baseball and barbecue thing. But another befuddled expression followed, and she'd just rolled her eyes, again, because too literal or not, that would never be the end of it now – even if he left the whole neighborhood burned to rubble like Sherman left Georgia – as if they couldn't order out for hamburgers just as easily as for pizza.

* * *

She asks him, again, if he returned Amber's latest phone call – which he had – and he almost wished his sister didn't write sometimes, because then Adds wouldn't see the mail, and then she wouldn't ask questions, and then she wouldn't be telling him how crazy her own family was, as if Forbes and Montgomery were names to be freaking ashamed of or something, or as if she was ever a teen aged girl without a trust fund.

It was just as well that Iowa was so far away, and so expensive to get to, and that Aaron was so busy, and that Amber was already working more hours at Jensen's grocer, since at least that kept her out of trouble. She'd be graduating soon, anyway, would be an adult, and at least she knew the score just like he and Aaron did, that she'd have to find her own way out.

She could do it, too, since she was smart and tough like Mere; she was a lot like Mere, really, sounded just like her in her occasional notes, and he wished Adds would stop pressing him about Aaron and his sister and his mom, because everything was under control. He wished she'd start paying more attention to her own crap for a change, like her on-going battle with the Board, which was making her pace impatiently in the scrub room and bite her nails and snap at her staff and act like she didn't notice any of it.

That he could do something about, though, and three nights later he pulls into the Fair Grounds' parking lot, ignoring her puzzled glances as he snags two tickets and tugs her through the gate. Immediately scouting out where that smell was coming from, he drags them onto a line ten people deep, snaked between a ride pass window and a water game booth whose featured prizes were tiny gold fish bowls and mountains of stuffed animals.

"Pop corn and candy apples for dinner?" she laughed, poking into her steaming bag as they settled on a nearby bench under a tree.

"Tickets are half prize on Thursday," he shrugged, eagerly unwrapping his apple, his eyes widening as the sticky sugar shell dripped down his fingers. "And it's either this or the Board finally fires you."

"They're threatening to cut my staff again," she grumbled, digging into her pop corn. "I just told them what I thought about that."

"They're never going to pick you to be the next Chief if you keep sending those memos, you know that, right," he retorted, scowling as she offered him three napkins.

"You're telling me to be diplomatic?" she snorted. "You?"

"Strategic ass kissing," he corrected, shaking his head and gnawing busily on his dripping candy apple.

"I tried that once," she insisted, handing him another napkin. "I lost anyway."

"You didn't lose," he reminded her. "Weber didn't retire."

"Doesn't matter," she replied, shaking her head as she carefully wiped butter from her fingers. "If they hire me, they hire me. At least they'll know what they're getting."

"Wear that red skirt," he smirked, polishing off his candy with gusto. "They won't know what hit them."

"That's your professional advice?" she taunted, shaking her head again.

"No," he admitted, wiggling his eye brows. "But, wow, that skirt."

"Shut up," she replied, swatting him playfully. "Seriously, you're twelve years old."

"Right," he scoffed, watching the crowds milling through the park. "You like Ferris wheels?" he asked suddenly.

"You want to go on a Ferris wheel?" she asked incredulously.

"Chicken," he taunted, raising his eye brows at her.

"I take that back," she huffed. "You're five years old."

"And you're chicken," he retorted smugly.

"Get up," she demanded, eying him sternly and standing abruptly and tossing her empty pop corn bag into the nearby trash can.

"Oh," he teased. "Now you want to-"

"No," she said flatly, snatching the wrapper from his candy apple away and tossing it into the trash bin after her pop corn bag. "You've plainly had too much sugar tonight."

"Really," he smirked, springing up from the bench.

"Yeah," she insisted, brushing her fingers across his face and kissing him.

"Whoa," he breathed, when she finally released him.

"Sticky," she countered, shaking her head and sticking her tongue out with a grimace.

"Sticky?" he repeated, eying her sheepishly as he ran his fingers over his lips.

"Yeah," she agreed, grabbing his hand and tugging him toward their car. "Let's not waste all that sugar on a kids' ride."

She's definitely more relaxed hours later, snoring softly beside him, and he toys with her hair and brushes his fingers over her body and he smirks as she curls closer into him with a contented murmur and the warmth of her skin makes him drowsy and the rhythm of her breathing slows his own heartbeat and he sinks into her before he can stop himself.

Different vacant eyes are waiting for him, again, from a different pool of blood, have been for most of this week, and he bolts awake and his hands run soothingly over her again and she just stretches lazily and shifts closer and doesn't wake and he closes his arms uncomfortably around her and those eyes look more familiar even then Reed's and he wishes that Iowa was even farther away.

* * *

Addison watches him with Meredith and Yang the next day, the quirky little family whose dynamics could be measured on the Richter scale, and she knows his dreams are back again – probably because the hospital is awash with talk of an anniversary memorial – and she could tell him she notices, but she's sure he just needs to simmer for a while.

She could tell him the dreams would stop, eventually, but then she'd have to call them nightmares, and then he'd have to believe he was a victim, which he never would, and that would all be too close to the meds he boxes up each month, for the mother he hates to talk about. She could tell him the scars would heal, too, that he wouldn't always look like a gutted fish, as she'd heard him grumble once to Meredith after Yang teased him.

But they probably wouldn't, even after the bruising faded away completely, and then she'd have to tell him a scarier truth, anyway, that she'd gotten used to them, that he'd look too naked without them now, that they'd always line the mental map she used to navigate his body in the darkness, and that she'd probably always coil around him while he slept just in case, since holding him together was just part of who she was now.

She could tell him she got it, too, the impulse to hide, the impulse to run. But she'd have to add that you can only run, really, if you'll never look back, and she couldn't run again, - not when he made her laugh, and made her scream, and made her charge up a highway she was sure she'd seen the last of, and still made her heart catch in her throat, like he had from the beginning - not when she knew she'd always end up back here, anyway, not when she was sure that she could never run far enough to stop this from being home.

That galled her too, though, because she wasn't going to be another loose thread, another snag he had to protect whenever his own life threatened to unravel, and she wasn't going to keep quiet about what she wanted anymore – because she had expectations, and he was as literal as all hell – and she wasn't going to sit back and watch silently as he made bad situations worse – as if the future he was inadvertently setting fire to wasn't hers, too.

"Why didn't you show this to me?" she finally asked a week later, fingering the newspaper clipping she'd plucked from his bedside table.

"Since when do you read my mail?" he scowled, grabbing his jacket and his work bag as they prepared to leave for the day.

"She graduated with honors," Addison insisted, ignoring his point. "Did you even send her anything, a card, or-"

"I called her," he interrupted, pulling on his jacket and digging his keys from his pocket as he stalked down the stairs.

"That's it?" she demanded, following him out of the house and to the drive way. "We could have gone to the ceremony."

"In Iowa?" he protested, looking at her incredulously. "That's a freaking thousand miles from here."

"It's not that far," she insisted. "I'm sure planes land there. They probably have roads."

What's the big deal?" he grumbled, still fuming as he grabbed the car door handle.

"To her?" Addison asked, glaring back at him. "It's huge. Why do you think she sent that clipping? She wants you to be proud of her."

'She barely even remembers me," he said, shaking his head. "Her and Aaron probably did something together."

"We should have been there," Addison fumed, crossing her arms over her chest and exhaling heavily.

"She wouldn't care," he retorted. "She doesn't even know you."

"I've spoken to her on the phone," she reminded him sharply.

"She's got her friends, and she's got a job for the summer. She's moving on," he retorted, brushing off her objection.

"Are you ashamed of your family or something?" Addison asked abruptly. "Because it's not like mine is any prize."

"No," he snarled, motioning for her to get into the car. "We're almost late."

"Then why don't you invite Aaron here, or Amber?" she asked, standing her ground.

"I don't want my mom to be alone," he barked impatiently. "Geeze, why do you think I send her those meds?"

"Then why don't we go there?" she prompted. "Congratulate Amber, visit your mom. I'm sure they'd love to see you."

"All Amber knows about me is that I beat the crap out of our dad and he never came back," he snapped bitterly. "And all Aaron remembers is that I left, too."

"That doesn't mean we can't visit them," she protested.

"I can't fix that," he insisted, shaking his head vigorously. "I can't give her-".

"Alex," she interrupted, stepping toward him.

"Here," he said gruffly, shoving the keys into her hand and stalking away.

Climbing into her car, she watched as he tore out of the driveway in his old jeep, almost half wishing a flat tire on him, and wondering if maybe she didn't prefer when he was tongue tied and fumbling for words. _Maybe communication is over-rated_, she grumbled to herself, slamming the car door shut.

* * *

He left the hospital hours after she did, but it was still too early, and she'd still be awake so he slipped into Joe's. It was quiet for a Wednesday, even at that hour, and he watched a soundless baseball game sprawl across the television screen above the bar, while picking idly at the empty peanut shells that littered the counter.

It was different, fighting with her, since she was tough like Mere, and she didn't need rescuing any more then he did, and she'd never be a victim, and she was nothing like his mother – she'd scream bloody murder if he ever laid a hand on her, after doing all she could to kick his ass, and probably have him locked up for life – and she'd already be making reservations to go to Iowa herself, if she thought Amber really needed her.

He stared at the amber liquid in his glass, and wondered perversely, again, if that's where his sister's name came from, and he inhaled deeply - because the smell of cheap beer was all he had left of his father – and he knew that Amber had even less, thanks to her big brother and his fists and his temper and a mother who wouldn't, or couldn't, scream.

Couldn't, he reminded himself forcefully, again and again, because there are a lot of things that crazy can't do, and crazy is everywhere, and crazy follows you even into your dreams, where vacant eyes stare back at you, as if you could have made any difference, as if you weren't always a day too late, or a dollar too short, or just a damn coward.

That's all she'll ever remember of him, too, if he didn't think of something: she'll end up in a dead end job, on a dead end street, in a dead end town, with some dead end loser, just like their mother did, and he'll have run out on Amber, too – just like their father – and she'll join the tally of women he couldn't help, and the roster of women who hate him.

* * *

"I missed you at dinner," Addison said flatly, crawling onto the bed beside him, where he'd holed up in the darkened guest room.

"Joe's," he said flatly.

"Did you eat?" she asked finally, watching closely as he nodded, before sinking into silence again.

"She's smart," he said quietly. "She deserves better."

"We could help her," Addison began.

"My mom's meds," he said, shaking his head as he stared at the ceiling.

"We have the money," she replied, eyeing him closely. It was pocket change, to her. Four years of college anywhere wouldn't even put a dent in her latte budget. But it was a vast sum to him, and millions more in pride, even more then his barbecuing misadventures.

"I can help her once I finish residency," he insisted. "She can work until then, maybe go to night school at the community college."

"Or we could help her," Addison repeated.

"I'll figure this out," he said, bluntly. "My family's freaking screwed up, but we're no charity case."

"Just pig headed," she muttered.

"I owe her," he insisted. "I'll find a way to help her."

"Or, we could get married," she suggested. "Then we could help her." He was literal, she reminded herself wryly; that might be the only 'we' he could understand.

"Married?" he repeated blankly.

"You're grumpy," she announced quietly.

"Huh?" he asked, half sitting up on his elbows.

"And you're hot headed, and stubborn, and you pout, and you're a menace with a barbecue poker, and you're a general, all purpose pain in the ass, and if you leave the milk out again when you raid the cookie jar I'm going to pour it all over your head," she breathed, pausing briefly before her voice dropped to a wispier, "and I want you anyway, and… and I came back to get you."

He was just staring at the ceiling then, vaguely terrified, and she could see his eyes widen even in the darkness, and she could almost hear his heart beat speeding up as he exhaled sharply. "You snore…" he stammered finally, "and I hate those fake weeds in the den."

"They're gladiolas," she snorted, "and they're real."

"Oh." He nodded absently, still staring at the ceiling, glassy eyed.

"Is that your idea of a yes?" she asked a moment later. "Accusing me of snoring? Usually you're more…direct."

"I still see her sometimes," he said finally.

"The woman who was shot in…in the supply closet?" she asked carefully, judging from the tone of the 'her.' She wasn't sure, because she'd only heard second hand stories and gossip and conjectures, about a young female Resident whose name she never wanted to know, blasted right between the eyes, and a trail of blood leading to the elevator where he was found, almost too late – almost too late for her to come back and get him.

"I knew her, worked with her," he answered. "She liked yoga."

"It's been less then a year," she said quietly. "And with all the talk of a memorial now, it makes sense that you'd remember her."

"She looks like my mom sometimes, in the dreams," he mumbled. "Just…gone, before I could freaking do anything."

"You can still help Amber," she said. "We can help her."

"You shouldn't have to do that," he objected, cutting her off.

"Do what?" she asked, with a sharp frown.

"This," he insisted impatiently, his arms motioning vaguely around the room again, though she was fairly sure she had a better grasp of what "this" was this time around.

"I'm not," she replied. "And it's not charity."

"Then what is it?" he asked.

"Figure it out," she directed smugly, rolling over on top of him and slowly peeling off his clothes.

He was entirely too literal, except about dreams, apparently, and he was probably going to burn their house down someday because of it. But he needed direct communication, and "this" was entirely too – too something, too a lot of things – to put into any words she had – and it poured out instead in moans and gasps and groans – and a deep shuddering howl that coursed out through her lips, rattling the windows as he found his way home.

She was still collapsed on top of him moments later, his heart beating wildly against her, and his moans inter-mingled with hers as she slid slowly to one side, tugging him along as he lingered inside her, and her eager hands found another choice destination, expertly mapped long before - because she was Satan's Mistress, and even literalists could be made to talk - and she just giggled as a thundering groan finally rippled through him.

"Was that a yes?" she teased, moments later, pulling him closer.

"Wow," he muttered breathlessly, nodding wide-eyed again.

"Okay," she chuckled softly. "I'll take wow instead."

"Hmphmh," came his more or less self-explanatory reply, as her hands continued their well worn travels.

"So I snore?" she asked, her fingers creeping threateningly along his suture lines as he struggled not to squirm. "Bad?"

"Like it," he mumbled vaguely, shaking his head slightly as another soft moan escaped him. "Like knowing you're there."

"Then why did you say that?" she demanded sternly, her hands tightening their grasp.

"You started it," he gasped, his eyes half rolling back in his head as another rumbling groan stirred beneath his skin.

"Yeah," she smirked, coiling more tightly around him. "I guess I did."


End file.
